


Dishonored Short Fic Skip

by MsLanna



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Low Chaos, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2018-09-06 18:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8763370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsLanna/pseuds/MsLanna
Summary: Another of those drabble dumps. Stupid fandoms.Each chapter is a self contained story.Characters listed behind chapter titles for easy access.





	1. Monsters (Corvo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set 1 - 2 years after the first game.

He didn't even notice.

At some point Emily would shove him hard enough to unbalance him and then Corvo would realise he had been gone again. Glazed, Emily called it: rigid, brittle with his eyes unfocussed. He tried not to drift. But he didn't even notice.

One moment her was all there and the next he was gone. Crouched on a ledge over Holger Square waiting for a guard to turn their back so he could slip past; crouched behind a stack of boxes on Kaldwin Bridge waiting for a guard to turn their back so he could slip past.

It was not the waiting per se. His muscles were accustomed to it, trapped in uncomfortable positions for extended periods, taxed to capacity from one moment to the next. He had been her bodyguard for too damn long to care about that, almost long enough to not even notice.

But watching those guards, Overseers and soldiers, men that should be hers by rights! And yet they were strutting around in their new colours right under his nose. And he waited. Waited for them to turn their back so he could slip by.

It was painfully angering, filling him with boiling rage that they should live when she had died. She... It still hurt to think her name after all this time. But it was a pain reserved for special occasions.

Those nights had been filled with twisted fury, revenge raging through his blood as he commanded his muscles to stillness. It would have been much easier, oh so much easier and how much more satisfying to cut through them all. To sink his blade into their guts and throats, to see the light go out n their eyes through his blood-splattered mask. Kill them slowly, a blade through the throat, silent and personal.

But he had not. Crawling in the vengeful darkness, he had not. Corvo remembered the shaking of his hands. But the guard had turned his back and he had slipped past. They had lived.

Emily punched him and he found himself still shaking. That she should put up with it. But she was too much like her mother. Corvo smiled as he skirted the pain for special occasions in his head. Too much like her mother by far.

“I am sorry. I was-”

"-in thoughts. I know, I know.” She smiled. “One day you have to tell me where you go.”

“Some day.” Corvo smiled back. A smile hiding all the violence in the world bridled, all the revenge never taken, the blood never spilt. A mask of its own, this smile could hide the annihilating anger still coursing through him when he was not careful.

Because they had lived when she had died. But what good was slaying a monster only to become it, to replace it yourself as the next in line to be killed? It would have been so much easier. It would have satisfied the animal desire for murder and destruction. He looked at the young Empress before him.

If you became like them, what was the point?


	2. Doubt and Certainty (Corvo, Daud)

Corvo came to in a round hole covered with planks. It was not even very deep. It was made to escape from. It might be a trap. It might not; Daud was difficult to comprehend. But this was not the time for doubt. Emily was once again at the mercy of traitors. Corvo picked up a brick and began to make short work of the boards overhead.

He had been stripped of all weapons, but left with the mask. Was it a mistake? An oversight? Corvo stood in the rain of wooden splinters that fell with each thrown brick. Daud knew about the Outsider, about the powers he granted. And still, here he was, barely contained.

The betrayal of the Loyalists cut deep. Deeper than it should have. He was a bodyguard for heaven's sake. He was supposed to be good at judging character. Maybe they had started out good, or at least not totally bad in case of Pendleton. The urge to reunite Treavor with his brothers after all rose like bile. Maybe he had been wrong the whole time. Maybe killing them would have been the more sensible option.

Maybe killing _was_ the better option.

Corvo climbed out of his makeshift prison. An Overseer lay in a similar hole close by. Dead. Out of it for good. Maybe better off. But that was no way to think. Corvo shook himself out of his thoughts. If nothing he had done so far meant anything, it was time to start doing something that mattered. It was time to find Daud and deal with him terminally.

But first Corvo needed his gear back. The knife he had found was a sorry substitute for his sword, even if he had used it little. Corvo blinked up the stairway crouching low as he watched the two Whalers at its top through dark vision. Two guards, two holes below, one knife in his hand.

He still had his powers. Nothing could stop him from stopping time, and knifing them in the murky stillness. Or he could just slip by unseen. Or maybe just choke them because why not? It was mercy compared to a knife between the ribs. It was also still violence and something inside him burned.

After another moment of deliberation, time stopped. Corvo slipped out unseen as if he was just another shadow. Nothing really changed until you changed the system. It was true for Dunwall. It would be true for the Whalers as well. His path through the districts was silent and invisible.

Corvo found his gear carelessly discarded in a closed down refinery. The blade unfolded with the silken sound of death. He looked at it for a long moment before folding it back up. With his weapons and supplies back in place, he felt complete again. Out of habit, he set the crossbow to sleep darts. The urge to kill was flaring but flickering.

What would the Whalers do when he eliminated Daud? Corvo watched the patrols teleport from roof to roof. They might just fade back into obscurity. Without the powers Daud had shared they were only another gang for hire, if an extremely deadly one. They might also cause a gang war of factions vying over the succession.

He could not say which was more likely. And how likely would it have to be to justify taking them all out, the rag-tag misfits that had found a purpose. Corvo could not deny them that in this city which had slipped into chaos. What did anybody have to hold on to?

Even with the power shared between them and Daud, the Whalers were no match for Corvo. Once again it was up to him, kill, knock out, steal by. It took longer than it used to. But each time Corvo decided not to touch a Whaler it did involve conscious thought. The question if it was indeed the right decision. If he was not too set in his ways to see the horrible truth.

And yet, reaching Daud's lair, reaching Daud himself was almost easy. The man himself, though, not quite. Immune to sleep darts and bent on a fight. Corvo tried to put him to sleep several times before giving up on that idea. His blade came to live with a soft hiss.

Despite Corvo's reservations, the duel was exciting. Finally he was up against somebody with similar skills. Daud laughed at him for trying to stop time. Corvo felt his smile acutely. It pressed against his mask as he landed another hit.

Then Daud blinked away, leaving behind nothing but the heavy smell of blood and abating adrenaline in Corvo's blood.

He looked around, using the dark vision to find where the assassin had gone to. It was not far, just another broken room across the narrow street. Corvo followed and found Daud wounded, unable to win their fight. Possibly unable to flee.

And then, he pleaded for his Life. Corvo listened to the doubt of a man who had used his powers for his own gain, ignoring the effects of his actions. It had made him powerful in his own way. It had not fulfilled him. And now, here he was, ready to die.

Stone cold certainty settled in Corvo's stomach. He had done the right thing. Each life he spared, each guard he left unaware of his presence – they had all mattered. Because when the high and mighty fight, it was them who got caught in the crosshairs every time. They were the ones carrying out the orders.

Burrows' yesterday – Havelock's today. What difference did it make for them if they died under orders from one or the other? So his was the way of silence and shadow. Death stealing by unnoticed leaving nor trace or trail. As it had been so far. As it was right.

Daud had not cared about the lives he ended, about the blood he spilt. The highest bidder got his service. And if he was out-bidden some time later, that was just how life was. It was all part of the game. Daud kept his distance complete, abjuring any involvement, discarding any purpose at the same time. And here he knelt and knew it. Knew it and wanted more. Saw it in Corov standing before him, the light reflecting from his blade.

“My life is in you hands. Make your choice.” Daud stepped away from this final decision with all the regret and uncertainty it entailed.

Corvo looked down at the man for a moment. No purpose, no goal, only a desire to be somewhere else, probably to be somebody else as well. And he had bigger fish to fry, had let men live with less desire to change. He did not need to kill. He only needed to make sure that Emily regained her throne.

He sheathed his sword. There were many alive who deserved death. But the dead could never make amends. Corvo turned to leave but stopped in his tracks when Daud spoke again.

“And you choose Mercy. Extraordinary.”

When Corvo turned, he only caught a glimpse of Daud vanishing into thin air. Was it possible that this came to bite him in the arse some day? Yes. But he would deal with that if it happened. For today this was the path he had chosen. The path he would not leave.

The Loyalists had betrayed him, but that did not make betrayal the only option. They had asked him to kill as well, and it had not been the only option. There was always a way. And he would find it. Of that, he was certain.


	3. Mercy (Corvo)

_Be merciful._

Corvo had thought it would stop. It had been over two years since Emily's coronation. He had believed that some day the past would go to sleep. But those words kept haunting him.

Jessamine's words. Naturally they echoed in his head in her voice.

Be merciful.

She had said it to him, he could not quite recall about what. But it rang true for everything. And he had tried, hadn’t he? Done his very best on his path to restore Emily to the throne. She did well for a kid, she really did. And of course she didn't know. She was too young.

But there were worse fates than death.

He had to know, didn't he. One of them was being alive when the one you loved was dead because you had failed to protect her. Of course that was a lie. He had Emily. Leaving her to struggle on her own would be worse by far. But there were many fates worse than death and in the small hours when those words hunted him, Corvo remembered.

He wondered if amends were possible. If too much time had passed by. If it would mean anything. And it did not stop. If anything, it became more insistent over time. Had he done the right thing? Had it been mercy? Or was it revenge under the mantle of humanity? He had to find out.

The rock mines were easy enough to find. They had fallen to a distant relatives. Their output was not even high any more. Without slave work, it they would have become a losing enterprise long ago.

Infiltrating the mine was ridiculously easy. Most of the guards looked inwards, focussed more on keeping people in than protecting against whatever might be outside. Only a few walked the perimeter. Corvo didn't need any supernatural ability to get past them.

The guards' job was made easy by the workforce. Corvo wouldn't have needed to hide at all had he donned some rags and a deject pose, shuffling along with the other inhabitants.

Crouching in the shadows, Corvo shivered. It was worse than death indeed. Not only for the Pendleton twins who were more deserving of punishment than most others here. Men and women with broken eyes walked past. They would not even have noticed them if he had blocked their way. With heads hanging low, they made their bleak way around any obstacle, caring only if it carried a taser.

Low murmurs shuffled over the ground, scared to be heard. They spoke of hunger, food that was short and not filling, the lack of sleep, hard work and hunger.

Corvo wondered how he could release only two of the workers here faced with such misery. What kind of society allowed places like this? His, obviously. It didn't sit well with him. He moved in an endless sea of resignation. Not even the overseers were exempt. They did their jobs because they paid, because families had to be fed, parents, siblings to support. They detested the filth, the despair and had no qualms to take it out on the slaves.

The way through the mines seemed to take forever. As if even time was reluctant to enter the place and touch upon its squalor. In the end, Corvo found the twins. It was their ears that saved them. True Pendleton ears, proudly sticking away from shaved heads. The only indomitable element in the whole mine.

They were impossible to recognise from the pictures they had left behind, the paintings in parlour rooms. Only memory could merge the faces before Corvo with those that had haunted Dunwall's society.

They huddled close, holding on to each other with spindly arms. Corvo would not have thought it possible to look more derelict than the other inhabitants of this place. But here they were, looking up at him with empty eyes. If they remembered anything, there was no sign of it.

Corvo wondered what it had been like, remembering the life in splendour in a place as hopeless as this, unable to communicate it to anybody except your own brother. How long had it taken to replace the careless cruelty of their privilege with the realisation that there was no gping back. That all that remained was the comfort of each other in a place that did not care if they lived or died. Or cared only in so far as their lives afforded some more sport.

They were living the receiving end of their escapades. And it had obviously broken them. Their only reaction to seeing him, was tightening their grip on each other. No hint of resistance. They just accepted of whatever was to come, even though it was expected to be pain. The twins had given up. Now their lives were a never-ending succession of hunger pain and just enough sustenance to keep going.

There was nothing they could do. They knew it. And their eyes were silently whispering into the darkness, speaking of the one loyalty that would not cede. Brittle white hands clawed their feeble promises on the other's dirty skin.

So this was what his mercy looked like.

Corvo looked at the forlorn figures. _Be merciful._ He had tried. He had failed.

“I am sorry.” His voice was muffled through the mask. There was no reaction. A slight widening of the eyes, a glance at the other, resigned anticipation of the things to come.

It was quick. It was silent. They did not have to let go of each other. Corvo looked down at the tangled bodies. In the morning he would have to have a rather pointed conversation with Emily. This was no way to run any part of a country.

His thought went to the last Pendleton child shortly, the figure slumped in its chair the Lighthouse. Havelock still talking to the bodies.

Mercy.

Corvo took a deep breath. Men like them were not born. They were made. And mercy would be nothing less than stopping that from happening. But he had time. He had the Empress at his side. Another long road to embark on.

Corvo slipped out of the rock mine unseen. There were too many broken eyes in this place. It was time to mend them.


	4. Faith (Billie Lurk)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meagen was not a believer when she was young.

It was too much.  
Billie stumbled off into the darkness, blinded by anger. All true, no lies. Outsider's hairy balls actually existed somewhere and the embodiments of evil interfered with this world. Interfered with her very life, the gang she had chosen.

It was too little too late. And she had only second hand proof anyway.

 _Do you believe?_ Deirdre had asked once.

It was a warm summer night, the sky a blanket of stars. They camped out near Wrenhaven River, the stony shore cushioned by broken trash. A bottle of brandy sat between them only half empty. The night was full of promise.

"Do you believe?" Deirdre repeated when Meagan didn't reply.

"In what?" She reached for the bottle. "The church? The Outsider? The whole damnation spiel?"

"Yes." Deirdre was thoughtful. She looked so vulnerable under the brittle starlight.

It was a stupid question. Meagan hated it. But Deirdre was serious and she would do anything for her, even think about annoying questions that didn't even matter. In her whole life, Meagan hadn't seen a single sign of divine intervention or evil entanglement. If the Overseers were right, how come she had a heap of crapshit for a mother? No child deserved that. If the Overseers were right, why had the Outsider not granted her power to to righten stuff. Where was her saving witch?

No. There was just life and it didn't care. You got shite piled up and you got lucky if you were lucky. Meagan took a long sip of brandy.

"No," she said after she had swallowed. It burned only a little, the ferocious effect worn off by familiarity. "It's all whale crap. Good to scare sissies and pussies."

Silence descended as they shared more brandy.

"What if you're wrong?" Deirdre finally asked. She propped herself up on one arm and ran her fingers through her hair.

"Guess I'll see you in heel. Not a bad place overall and lots of time for revenge." Meagan turned her head to capture Deirdre's wandering fingers between her lips.

"Don't be so hard." Deirdre whispered the admonishment.

But her palm was warm against Meagan's cheek and her thumb salty. She pried it loose with her tongue and began to suck on it gently. The stars mirrored in Deirdre's eyes brightened, as did her smile. It was one of the most beautiful sights Meagan knew.

Finally she released the precious digit from her mouth. Instead Meagan took Deirdre's hand and out it over her heart. "Never had no nothing supernatural happen to me. Only you. You're divine."

She put her own hand over Deirdre's that cupped her fluttering heart. "If'n there was any Outsider, any divine justice you'd be off so good: real beds, real food, real brandy."

"It's cheap but not all bad." Deirdre tightened her hold slightly. "And I got a real good thing, the only good thing worth having. Better than anything."

Her smile lit the night. A smile to rival the crescent moon. Meagan had pulled it close, sucked on it as if it was life itself. And it was.

Even now, years later that light pules in her bones as Billie curled up in the dark alone. Deirdre had deserved better, so much better. It was too late for her now. So the Outsider better be ready when she finally found him. If only that punk ass idiot had intervened sooner, Deirdre would still be alive. And one day, one day Billie would have justice for that.

  



End file.
